Today is the feast of Saint Dominic de Guzmán. He was born near Santo Domingo de Silos in Spain, just north of the Camino, in […]
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Supporting the Eucharistic Revival
General Instruction of the Roman Missal
Processions in the Rubrics of Lent
It’s a little hard to believe, but Ash Wednesday is less than a week away. How can Lent be so close already? The modern Roman […]
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Saint Benedict and the Work of God
Today is the feast of Saint Benedict of Nursia, who can safely be said to be the father of western monasticism. His monastic Holy Rule, […]
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Chant on the Vigil: Vespers for the Feast of Saint James
The Cathedral of Santiago has published a booklet (available in PDF) for first Vespers of the feast of Saint James the Apostle. First Vespers only […]
Review
A Digression on the Star Wars
Sometime in early June 1977, in a small theater in Hegewisch Illinois, I saw Star Wars for the first time. My grandfather took my sister […]
Saint Dominic
Today is the feast of Saint Dominic de Guzmán. He was born near Santo Domingo de Silos in Spain, just north of the Camino, in 1170. Legend has it that before his birth, his barren mother made a pilgrimage to Silos, and dreamt that a dog leapt from her womb carrying a flaming torch in its mouth – and it […]
» Read moreTransfiguration
Today we celebrate the Feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord, one of the more important (if sometimes overlooked) feasts of the liturgical year. This event definitively revealed the divinity of Christ. It appears in the three synoptic Gospels (Matthew 17:1–9, Mark 9:2–8, Luke 9:28–36). Two of the witnesses refer to it in their writings, but they do not tell […]
» Read moreOur Lady of the Snows
Today is the Memorial of the dedication of one of my favourite church buildings in the world, the basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome, also known in English as Saint Mary Major. It is occasionally known by the title of Our Lady of the Snows. When Francine and I were in Rome back in 2005, more than twenty years […]
» Read moreSaint Alphonsus Liguori
Depending on your particular calendar, today or tomorrow is the memorial of Saint Alphonsus Liguori (1696-1787), a great saint and Doctor of the Church who founded the Redemptorists and wrote on the spiritual life. I particularly enjoy his Way of the Cross and a short book (pamphlet, really) called How to Converse with God. Perhaps because of his voluminous writing, […]
» Read moreSaint Ignatius of Loyola
Today is the memorial of Saint Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuits, founder of Ignatian spirituality, and the only saint so far as I know who had a leg shot off by a cannonball. Ignatius was from a minor Basque-Spanish noble family, raised to be a soldier. After serving as a page in the household of a relative (who […]
» Read moreThe Feast of Saint James
Today is the Feast of Saint James the Greater, known throughout the Spanish-speaking world as Santiago and in French as Saint Jacques. He was one of Christ’s Twelve Apostles. Saint James is the patron saint of the Archdiocese of Seattle. May you have the joy of the feast! James and his brother John were natives of Galilee, sons of the […]
» Read moreChant on the Vigil: Vespers for the Feast of Saint James
The Cathedral of Santiago has published a booklet (available in PDF) for first Vespers of the feast of Saint James the Apostle. First Vespers only occur for Solemnities, and they are prayed on the Vigil. For most of the world, Saint James only has a feast, but in places where he is patron saint – such as Spain or the […]
» Read moreThe Apostle to the Apostles at Vézelay
Today we celebrate the feast of Saint Mary Magdalen. In the Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite, this is indeed a feast again, rather than merely a memorial, thanks to a change made by Pope Francis back in 2016. In the Extraordinary Form and in my Monastic Breviary, it is a Class III feast, althrough prior to the reform of […]
» Read moreHappy Birthday, Francine
This is somehow Francine’s second birthday since she passed to the Lord. No, I don’t understand it either. It was our custom to celebrate her birthday with a dinner at some new place we hadn’t tried before. In 2023, we had her birthday dinner at a local tapas place called Amor. Her photo from that dinner now hangs in the […]
» Read moreThe Poetry of Apollo
Fifty-seven years ago today, on July 20, 1969, human beings first set foot upon the Moon. My mother claims I watched the landing at the tender age of two, hiding underneath the coffee table. If so, I don’t remember it. My lovely bride Francine, however, did. Her birthday is July 21, and she clearly remembered having a lunar module on […]
» Read moreCheers! to Saint Arnulf
On this, the Memorial of Saint Arnulf of Metz (c. 582–640), patron saint of brewers, let us hoist a tankard to his memory and say a prayer for his intercession. For some reason, the English found “Arnulf” too difficult, so in many English-language resources he is known as “Arnold”. Go figure. It was July 642 and very hot when the […]
» Read moreOur Lady of Mount Carmel
Tradition holds that on July 16, 1251, the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to Saint Simon Stock, prior general of the Carmelites. She offered him a message of hope for the Order, a message that they sorely needed. At this time, the Carmelite Order was in trouble. They had their origins as a community of hermits on the slopes of Mount […]
» Read moreSaint Bonaventure
Saint Bonaventure, whose memorial is today in the Ordinary Form, received his (much delayed) doctorate in theology in Paris in 1257, in the same class as Saint Thomas Aquinas. Later that same year, he was elected Minister General of the Franciscan Order. Bonaventure spent much of his life as a theologian at the university, living in poverty as a Franciscan […]
» Read moreSmall Steps in the Oratory
The chapel at Pistachio House is the oldest building on the property. It began its life in about 1904 as the shack in which the folks who built Pistachio House lived during construction. Over the decades and century since then, it has served at various times as a coal bin, a workshop, and storage. When Francine and I bought Pistachio […]
» Read moreEmperor, Oblate, Saint
It’s a pretty rare thing when Kings become saints, or at least become canonized saints. I can only think of a handful off the top of my head, though I’m sure there are more: Saint Louis IX of France, Saint Edward the Confessor of Anglo-Saxon England, Saint Stephen of Hungary. Today is the memorial of the only Western Emperor Saint […]
» Read moreFunerals and Weddings
One year ago today, I buried the love of my life in the cold earth of a priest’s grave. It’s an impossible thing. My heart aches even to think about it. Since I have returned from the Camino, the largest presence in Pistachio House is Francine’s absence. Today is also the feast of Saint Benedict, and Francine and I are […]
» Read moreThe United States at 250: Reasons for Revolution
IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776 The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and […]
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